We haven’t done this in a while. Here’s a look at what’s coming up in your local record store.

Next week’s a good one, with Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues and the Beastie Boys’ confusingly-tiled Hot Sauce Committee Part Two hitting shelves. The new Dredg will make an appearance as well, and if you know Dredg, you’ll be interested to hear what an album of theirs entitled Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy might sound like.

The following week, jam out to the first Cars album in 24 years, Move Like This. But that’s nowhere near all. We’ve got the new Sloan, The Double Cross, the Antlers’ Burst Apart, Okkervil River’s I Am Very Far, Manchester Orchestra’s Simple Math, Jesu’s Ascension, and yes, Turtleneck and Chain, the new one from SNL mainstays the Lonely Island. The next week, on May 17, Danger Mouse hits us with his multi-artist project Rome, Moby returns with Destroyed, and Glasvegas deliver their second album, Euphoric Heartbreak.

David Bazan’s Strange Negotiations leads off May 24, one of the lesser music weeks of the spring and summer. (Not that Bazan’s album should be anything less than amazing.) Kate Bush delivers Director’s Cut, which revisits a few old albums; The Prodigy gives us their first live album, World’s on Fire; and Thurston Moore drops his latest solo album, Demolished Thoughts.

May 31 is another big one, though, led off by Death Cab for Cutie’s Codes and Keys. Everything I’ve heard from this has been underwhelming, but Death Cab albums usually take on new dimensions when experienced as a whole. My Morning Jacket comes back with Circuital, while Eddie Vedder unveils his Ukulele Songs. BT drops a pair of reimaginings of his extraordinary These Hopeful Machines album, one a 60-minute megamix and the other a series of remixes. And ultra-dramatic songwriter Patrick Wolf presents Lupercalia, the follow-up to the silly yet satisfying The Bachelor.

June 7 will bring us a rock opera from Fucked Up called David Comes to Life, an EP from the Appleseed Cast entitled Middle States, an ‘80s covers record from Duncan Sheik (with an unimpeachable track list), a live album from Def Leppard, and the ninth solo record from Peter Murphy, fittingly entitled Ninth. Arctic Monkeys head up June 14 with the ludicrously-titled Suck It and See, in direct contrast to Owl City’s third album, All Things Bright and Beautiful. And Battles delivers a second album of crazy prog called Gloss Drop.

And June 21 will see Bon Iver grace record stores once again, with a self-titled effort on which every song is named after a place. Neil Finn’s son Liam will return with FOMO, electro-poppers Yacht will deliver Shangri-La, OK Go will give us their first live album 180/365, and amazing ambient metal guru Devin Townsend will complete his four-album Devin Townsend Project series with two polar opposites, the furious Deconstruction and the peaceful Ghost.

The year will also bring us a new They Might Be Giants, a fifth album from Fountains of Wayne, and another reunion record from Jane’s Addiction.

But wait, I hear you saying. You’ve missed a big one. And you’re right. On June 21, the greatest pop satirist in America returns with another helping of balloon-popping, piss-taking goodness. I am, of course, talking about “Weird Al” Yankovic, and his new one, Alpocalypse. You may have heard about his flap with Lady Gaga and her people, over a parody of “Born This Way” that cuts right to the heart of what Gaga is and does. It’s called “Perform This Way,” and you can hear it here. I am an unabashed Weird Al fan, and I can’t wait for this.

Consider this your coming attractions reel for the next two months here on TM3AM. And now, our feature presentation.

* * * * *

Lately, I have been rereading The Sandman, and I’ve rekindled my love for it.

The Sandman is Neil Gaiman’s epic 10-volume (plus two ancillary epilogues) comic book saga, published in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s by DC Comics. It was, at the time, the first attempt by a mainstream comic company to take hold of a massive, multi-level novel and see it through to the end. And Gaiman’s story did, in fact, have an end – the series ran 75 issues, and that was it. It’s not even accurate to say that a self-contained, extended graphic novel was a rarity in mainstream comics in those days. It simply did not exist before The Sandman.

And it’s painfully flawed, as you might expect from a first attempt at something this complex, but in places, particularly its second half, it sings. The big comics companies have gotten much better at this sort of thing in the years since The Sandman was published, and now it’s fairly common to ask writers of monthly comics just how many issues they have in mind, and whether they will be collected in a series of volumes. But The Sandman did it first, at least in mainstream America.

I think it’s the ambition I most admire about this work. It takes a long time to read, but it’s worth the investment. I’m always drawn to art that demands much of me, hoping that it rewards just as much in return. I think creating a 75-issue comic book series with a beginning and an end (particularly an end that requires you to have read the beginning) is a bold and fearless thing to do.

Similarly, I think in this age of instant-download singles and short attention spans, it’s brave to put out an album that asks for hours of a listener’s attention. In the same way that I want to support a work like The Sandman, I want to help make it financially viable for musicians to pursue their two-hour concept albums without fear. I want to support ambition, wherever I find it. For me, even the idea of an album that expands to two hours or more is exciting, particularly if the music contained within is similarly ambitious.

You can imagine, then, how thrilled I was to get my hands on The Octopus, the third album from Manchester trio Amplifier. I know, I’d never heard of them either, until the ever-reliable Rob Hale from Kiss the Sky introduced me to them. Amplifier makes loud, loud music – they’re a power trio that takes equally from Porcupine Tree and Tool. Over two albums, they established a crushing, yet melodic sound, one that never really deviates from the two-or-three-note crawling riff template, but creates a punishing and powerful force ahead of it.

Still, they’re not a band that I would describe as particularly ambitious, which is why the self-released The Octopus is such a stunner. It’s two hours long, contains 16 expansive tracks, and is easily one of the most demanding albums I’ve heard in a long time. This is the sound of three musicians doing whatever they want, for as long as they want. Since they are Amplifier, what they want to do is often slow, pummeling riffage, but here it is just as often moody soundscapes, melodic breaks and tricky, Rush-like passages.

I was initially underwhelmed by The Octopus, because I think I expected something more out of character. The first two tracks certainly led me in that direction. “The Runner” is three minutes of sound effects, Pink Floyd-style, while “Minion’s Song” is a full-on Freddie Mercury show tune. There’s pianos and swooping melodies and a Brian May-esque guitar-and-harmonies explosion, and the whole thing is farther over the top than Amplifier has ever gone. Which may be why the remaining 14 tracks of glacially-paced guitar thuddery left me scratching my head.

But on subsequent listens, I grew to love The Octopus. The repetitive, dirge-like nature of many of these songs is the point – this is an album that sets a mood with its third track, and never breaks it. The title track is nine minutes long, and built around one two-note bass line, with creepy clean guitars slithering atop it. As a song, there isn’t much to it. As a mood, it’s splendid. Same goes for even the more upbeat tracks, like “Golden Ratio.” They’re louder, but they’re still inexorable death marches. The first disc is mainly slow punishers, with more interesting and melodic moments creeping into the second – check the eight-minute “Fall of the Empire,” a stop-time nightmare with some terrific harmonies.

If you spend The Octopus looking for the hooks, or the killer melodies, you’ll be missing the point. You need to let an album like this wash over you. Then, when you’re fully immersed in the atmosphere it creates, you can really hear how amazing the band’s playing is here. Sel Balamir’s guitar playing is top notch – check out the extended solo on “Trading Dark Matter on the Stock Exchange” – and Matt Brobin’s drums and Neil Mahoney’s bass lock together like puzzle pieces. Dig “Bloodtest,” a straightforward number on the surface, but with one of the most interesting drum patterns on the album. This band is very good at what they do.

Whether you’ll want to listen to what they do for more than two hours is the question. By never taking things above a doom-laden crawl, Amplifier have essentially rendered The Octopus impenetrable to all but the hardiest of music fans. That’s probably the intention – when the first respite offered is “Oscar Night/Embryo,” an acoustic ballad with creepy coda nestled at track 15, you can be sure the band knows what it’s doing. The Octopus is a trip, but the scenery rarely changes. I’ve grown to like it a great deal, but your mileage may vary.

Go here.

* * * * *

For all that, though, Amplifier does not win the Ambition Award for the year. It pleases me to no end to report that 2011’s clear, runaway winner is Michael J. Pritzl. And I doubt anyone will surprise me more this year than he has.

For more than 20 years, Pritzl has led The Violet Burning. He’s done it for so long, in fact, that he’s the sole remaining original member – for some time, TVB has been a rotating cast of musicians with Pritzl at its center. They’ve made a lot of albums, and in fact they’ve made a lot of different kinds of albums, from the expansive self-titled effort in 1996 to the tidy and worshipful This Is the Moment in 2003 to the roaring, explosive Drop-Dead in 2006.

But he’s never made an album like the one he’s just dropped. It’s called (deep breath) The Story of Our Lives: Liebe Uber Alles, Black as Death and the Fantastic Machine. It is two hours and 20 minutes long, spread out over three full-length CDs, and it’s a cohesive concept album, the kind where themes from early songs resurface in later ones, and a main character goes on a journey, coming out the other side a different person entirely. It’s a vast, impressive achievement, and even after 20 or so listens, I’m not tired of it – I hear new things in it each time.

It is, in short, the finest moment of Pritzl’s two-decade recording career. And even if you’ve never heard of him, you should hear this.

I’ll start with the sound. This record is LOUD. It is the rawest, most aggressive thing Pritzl’s name has ever been associated with. There have been times in the past when the Violet Burning has felt like a bedroom project, like a studio-created entity. There is no point on The Story of Our Lives where they do not sound like a real live band, playing their hearts out. There’s a palpable energy that never flags over two hours and 20 minutes, even during the more sedate final third. I don’t want to give the impression that this is all Black Sabbath slash-and-burn guitar rock – there’s plenty of Pritzl’s trademark beauty here – but aside from seeing them live, I’ve never heard TVB rock out like this.

The album is subdivided into three chapters: The Fantastic Machine, Black as Death and Liebe Uber Alles. By and large, Black as Death is the heaviest, and Liebe Uber Alles the quietest, but the songs are not evenly divided by type. The album plays like a single thought, like a beginning-to-end trip. Its opening chapter, The Fantastic Machine, also feels like a single song – its 15 tracks blend together like a pocket symphony. It’s a work of tremendous scope, and though there are no standouts, the entire thing is consistent. It is Pritzl’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and the reference is not incidental – this often sounds like prime, early Smashing Pumpkins.

The story of The Story of Our Lives follows a character who, overwhelmed with the world around him, chooses death. He then moves through metaphorical and emotional hell before ending up praising the heavens. The Fantastic Machine’s first real song is called “This Is Where It All Begins,” and it sets the tone – the clean, quiet guitars suddenly give way to a massive metallic explosion. “I love you in the fading dawn, I’ll sing it though my breath is gone, home, won’t you carry me home…”

The Fantastic Machine then follows our main character as he makes his way though the world, and watches it destroy him. The two “Brother” interludes take aim at the Christian rock machine Pritzl spent years in, but also illuminate the architecture of that machine. When Pritzl sings “the lights have gone,” it’s heartbreaking. The molten “Firstborn From the Dead” is the last sign of struggle here – from there on, it’s all surrender. The gorgeous “The Letting” finds Pritzl singing “I’m not dead yet, I’m not gone, but I’m leaving soon,” and in the album’s whispered closer “Leaving (But I Don’t Want to Leave You),” our hero chooses death.

Black as Death announces itself as the loud one right away with “My Name is Night,” and follows it up with the chaotic, swirling “Maelstrom.” “I’m falling in too deep, please get this out of me, I’m haunted, I’m haunted,” Pritzl screams, his voice in astounding form. But this chapter is not all gut-punches – the dark “Sung” is perhaps the emotional low point, our character as far away from the light as he’s ever been (“I sang for you, all my life for you, now I’m sung”), but it’s followed by the wonderful “In Ruin.” Over a web of clean guitars, Pritzl sings, “Ain’t it just like love to be stronger than this death.”

And then, Liebe Uber Alles. The title of the album translates to “love over all,” and here the light begins to trickle down. The delicate “Mojave” leads into the U2-ish “Mon Desir,” and then into the rollicking “Finest Hour,” the album’s most upbeat moment, and the one that gives the album its name. “Now you’ve carried me 14,000 days, isn’t this the story of our lives…”

It is all sunrise from this point on, but it feels earned, hard-won. Liebe Uber Alles brings our character face to face with love, both earthly and spiritual, and it’s gorgeous. “My heart belongs to you, the only song I ever knew,” Pritzl sings in “Cardiac,” and then drives it home in the title track: “And in the end, all we’ve got, love and love alone will outlast death…” “Change of Heart” is the ultimate expression of romantic love here, and the nine-minute finale, “Made For You,” takes us to heaven: “Lord of all light, I was made for you, lord of all creation, I was made for you…” The extended coda is joyous and magical, and feels like a massive release, an exultation shouted to the heavens. It is, in short, classic Violet Burning.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give this three-CD set is that, had any one of the three been released on its own as the new Violet Burning album, I would have been happy. But with all three, bound together in a case that resembles an old book, with 80 pages of notes and pictures, well… I’m ecstatic. Michael Pritzl has been very good for a very long time, but even his biggest fans are in for a shock with this record. With The Story of Our Lives, he has delivered his magnum opus, his crowning achievement.

If you’ve never heard the Violet Burning before, well, there’s almost no point starting anywhere else. This is the record Pritzl’s been working towards for his entire life. If you want to hear his stuff, this is the one you need to get. Go here.

* * * * *

Next week, Fleet Foxes and the Beastie Boys. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m writing this while still reeling from the news that Elisabeth Sladen has died.

Those of you who aren’t Doctor Who fans probably won’t care that much. But Sladen, who will forever be known for her portrayal of the Doctor’s best friend and finest companion, Sarah Jane Smith, meant a lot to me. Even as a kid, Sarah Jane was my favorite companion. Smart and plucky, with a playful nature, she was the perfect foil for Tom Baker’s wild-eyed Doctor in the 1970s. And she was a journalist, and while I don’t think she had anything to do with me choosing my career, it’s interesting to note that I was drawn to the reporter even at an early age.

Sladen played Sarah Jane, off and on, for more than 35 years. She left Doctor Who in 1977, but returned for the 1983 special The Five Doctors, and then reprised her role in countless audio adventures. Producer Russell T. Davies brought Sarah Jane back to Who in 2006, one of his many master strokes, but it was Sladen who made it work. She bravely chose to play Sarah Jane as brittle and somewhat damaged, having seen wonders and then been thrown back into everyday life. She was colder somehow, older and more distant, but still the same Sarah Jane underneath. It was tremendous acting on Sladen’s part.

And that’s the way she played Sarah Jane all the way to the end. Sladen became the star of her own spinoff, the Sarah Jane Adventures, and despite the fact that it’s aimed at children, it’s a strong show, well-written and darker than you’d expect. In the fourth season, Sladen got to act alongside Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, and Katy Manning, as Jo Grant, the companion who directly preceded her in the ‘70s. That story, The Death of the Doctor, was a fan’s dream. It was just awesome.

Sladen was halfway through filming the fifth season of Sarah Jane when she died of complications from cancer. She was 63 years old. I don’t think it’s exaggerating anything to say she was the gold standard of Doctor Who companions. Sladen was an intensely private person – even now I don’t know much about her, and in fact didn’t know she was suffering from cancer – which puts the focus exactly where it belongs: on her portrayal of the greatest companion ever. Man, I’m going to miss her.

Rest in peace, Lis.

* * * * *

I am, for the most part, a fairly patient person.

I like works of art that take their time unfolding, that require multiple listens (or viewings or readings) to really grasp. Most music flies right by me without leaving much of a mark. Some music I like right away. But some – and it’s invariably the best music – leaves me a little bewildered the first time. I’ve become familiar with that little tingle in the back of my head, the one that says, “Listen again. And then again. You will love this, but it’s going to take time.”

Marillion is the best example I can come up with. Virtually every Marillion album has underwhelmed me on first listen. (Marbles is the only one that did it for me right away.) Their latest, Happiness is the Road, struck me as particularly boring my first time through. But a few dives later, it clicked, and now it’s among my favorites. I’ve heard this said before, but Marillion is one of those bands that annoys people who skip through to the good bits. Essentially, you either think it’s all good, or it all slides by you uneventfully. It takes time and patience to really enjoy what they’re doing.

Elbow is another such band. Over five albums now, this British quintet has quietly spun out dreamy, wispy music that irritates people who think rock bands should, you know, rock. Elbow’s music has been described by some as boring, which means to me that those critics gave the band a cursory listen, waiting for the guitar solos. There’s a subtlety to what Elbow does, and that means their songs will often seem unremarkable to the impatient.

I’ll include myself in that list too. The band’s first two albums, Asleep in the Back and Cast of Thousands, did little for me at first. I’m a melody addict, and I want my Britpop to soar and crash and weep. Elbow songs sort of bloom and fade, without kicking up much dust. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to them initially, and the songs seemed lacking somehow. But over time, the secrets unfolded.

I remember the first one to really kick in with me. “Whisper Grass,” a tune included on the American release of Cast of Thousands, swept me up in a hypnotic spell. There isn’t a lot to the song, but its mesmerizing piano figure, and Guy Garvey’s dark and lovely vocals, made me fall in love with it. And once that fell into place, every other Elbow song started to work for me. Now I consider those first two albums little masterpieces, and the band has only gotten better from there.

Record number five, the comma-challenged Build a Rocket Boys, has quickly become my favorite. Impressively, it is their most subtle, the one requiring the most patience. It opens with the eight-minute “The Birds,” a slow burn built around a repeating melodic figure. If you spend “The Birds” waiting for the “good bit” – the explosive chorus, the guitar crunch, the big drum entrance – you’ll be disappointed. Allow yourself to be swept up in it, though, and you’ll hear just how deceptively complicated the tune is. It takes its time arriving at its destination, but the trip is absolutely worth it.

From there, Rocket is a series of moody soundscapes and pretty ballads. Only a couple of songs – the pulsing “Neat Little Rows” and the off-kilter “High Ideals,” with its Mariachi-style horns – push the tempos. The rest of the album is gentle and warm, from the ringing pianos of “Lippy Kids” and “The River” to the gossamer acoustic guitars of “Jesus Was a Rochdale Girl.” “The Night Will Always Win” is the closest to a singalong anthem here, Garvey belting out a sterling melody over old-time pianos and strings. But even that is subdued, somehow below the surface, never breaking it. (The lyrics help: “I miss your stupid face, I miss your bad advice,” Garvey sings.)

The record, a compact 51:44, ends perfectly. A brief, chilling reprise of “The Birds” (sung by the 68-year-old man who tunes the band’s pianos) leads into “Dear Friends,” the warmest song here. Over a sweet web of acoustics, pianos and chiming electrics, Garvey sings, “You are the stars I navigate home by.” It’s a charming sentiment for a charming song, one that will leave you smiling. It caps off the most low-key, and yet the most impressive album Elbow has made. They’re practically the poster children for patient, slowly-unfolding prettiness, and this one requires more patience than most. But it rewards it with some of the most delicately beautiful music you’re likely to hear this year.

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If that’s not enough British ambiance for you, you could also pick up the Boxer Rebellion’s new one.

This quartet is in the running for my discovery of the year, right up there with the Joy Formidable. I bought their third effort, The Cold Still, on a whim. I liked the packaging, and I saw that Ethan Johns had produced it. So I gambled, and I won big.

The Boxer Rebellion plays an atmospheric brand of Britpop that focuses more on feeling than anything else. But the feeling is always a peaceful sort of unsettled, an ever-building menace beneath placid waters. They rock more than Elbow does – listen to single “Step Out of the Car,” with its slashing electric guitars – but they also aren’t afraid to take one idea and make the absolute most of it.

The opening track on The Cold Still, “No Harm,” exemplifies this. The pitter-patter drums are almost tribal, though subtle, while the guitars and keys spread out over the same four chords for the entire running time. But I don’t care, because it feels right. “Maybe there’s no harm, there’s no harm in you, so watch what you see, there’s a beast in me,” Nathan Nicholson sings, while the band slides around behind him, building and building with no release.

I love the Fleet Foxes-esque “Locked in the Basement” and the relatively explosive “The Runner,” but my favorites here are the ones that follow the lead of “No Harm.” “Both Sides Are Even” is a stunner, opening up new vistas every few seconds while Nicholson explores more and more of the song’s simple melody. Each time he sings “It’s the same thing, right or wrong,” it’s like a little death, and the music follows suit. “Caught By the Light” is similarly mesmerizing, built around beautiful clean guitar patterns. And closer “Doubt” is perfectly pitched, planting that seed of unease that flows backward into the entire record.

The Cold Still sounds like the album the National has been trying and failing to make for years. It’s full of catharsis and power, taking simple songs and magnifying them into epics. It’s more accessible and immediate than Elbow, but the Boxer Rebellion still ask for and reward patience. The Cold Still is a gorgeous effort from a band I’m glad to have found.

* * * * *

And finally, there is Derri Daugherty.

It’s been a running joke amongst fans of Daugherty’s band, the Choir: one day, we laugh, Derri will finish that solo album he’s been working on. Well. the joke’s on us, because here is Clouds Echo in Blue, Daugherty’s full-length solo debut. And it’s not at all what I was expecting, and it will probably surprise fans of the Choir’s atmospheric, spiritual pop music.

Clouds Echo in Blue is an eight-song instrumental effort, inspired by the shoegaze music of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s like a breeze over an ocean, Daugherty’s reverbed guitar falling like spring rain over beds of glorious noise. The first track, “The Sound at the End of the World,” sets the tone – there’s no song here, just droning high organ and pretty guitar accents. It’s meant to put you into a trance, and the remaining seven songs do little to break that trance.

Daugherty has long been one of my favorite guitarists, and his battery of tones is on fine display here. “This is How I Feel” finds him gently plucking a clean, chiming sound, while “Where Did Winter Go” is somewhat dirtier, distortion creeping in here and there. Throughout, Daugherty proves himself a fine, yet subtle player, only doing what is necessary to bring the song across. This is an album to play in a darkened room at four a.m., as you listen to the soundscapes flickering into the corners. The music, however, is never dark, always joyous and contented.

I’ve been waiting a while to hear Daugherty step out on his own, and while Clouds Echo in Blue is not at all what I thought I’d get, I’m beyond happy to have it. This is music that lifts spirits, that fills hearts with wonder, that gets at the beauty and joy of life without ever speaking a word. It’s been a good couple of years to be a Choir fan, and this is just the icing on top. This is slow, deep, gentle music that beckons you back to listen again and again. And you will.

You can hear and buy Clouds Echo in Blue here.

* * * * *

I hope everyone had a great Record Store Day. I certainly did. My record store, Kiss the Sky in Geneva, held a release party for Made in Aurora, the local artist compilation I contributed to. It’s an amazing piece of work, especially considering how quickly it came together: recorded in three days, mixed and mastered in a couple of weeks. Hundreds of people packed into the tiny store to buy that record and several others, and owner Steve Warrenfeltz said it was his best day ever, sales-wise, in 15 years of business. Felt good to be a part of that.

If you want to order Made in Aurora, Steve will ship it to you. Just, you know, FYI.

Next week, right here, I tackle epic, multi-disc releases from the Violet Burning and Amplifier. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s taken me a long time to be okay with getting older.

I will turn 37 in a few months. There’s nothing particularly momentous about the thirty-seventh year, but I’ve been feeling a lot more adult lately, a lot more stable. Oh, don’t worry, I’m still juvenile enough to realize that I’ll be able to make a Clerks joke once my birthday hits (“Thirty-seven?!?”), but I’m realizing, probably for the first time, that I wouldn’t go back. I had more energy as a teenager and a twenty-something, but no direction for it, and nothing to say with it. I think that comes with time and experience.

Like most things in my life, I can relate this to music. There’s a lot of emphasis in the music press on youthful vigor, on the kinetic electricity that only comes with not quite knowing what you’re doing. Every few months another group of garage-trained, sloppy, super-energetic youngsters appears from nowhere, and seems to effortlessly build buzz. (Think Girls, Los Campesinos, Times New Viking, etc.) And for the most part, these records leave me cold.

They’re all energy, no direction. These bands most often write songs as if everything’s new – the chords they’re spinning are the same chords in the same order that every neophyte comes up with early on, and the sense of discovery isn’t enough for me to forget that I’ve heard them all before. I’ve said that debut albums are all about potential, not the actual songs for me, and what I mean is, while I’m listening to most debuts, I’m imagining what these songwriters will be able to do once they have some insight to impart, some real skill behind their words and melodies.

Ah, but with age comes wisdom and maturity and the ability to write songs with more than four chords. I’m generalizing a little, of course – youngsters like Robin Pecknold, for example, write compelling and original tunes, while relics like Elton John haven’t penned a worthy number in 30 years. I get that. But this week I wanted to talk about the old guard, and the musical lessons that can only be learned by taking a long journey one step at a time.

* * * * *

It’s always an event for me when one of my Favorites Over Fifty makes a new record. Of course, it’s always good when the artist in question has something new to say, which isn’t always the case. So let’s skip right through Ray Davies first, on the way to more interesting stuff. Davies, now 66, is an incredible songwriter – he was the mastermind behind the Kinks – but of late, he’s been cashing in a bit much.

The new See My Friends is Davies’ second collection of new takes on old Kinks songs in a row, following last year’s Kinks Choral Collection. This time, Davies invites a number of famous friends to give their interpretations of his tunes. The lineup is pretty diverse, from Bruce Springsteen to Metallica to Black Francis to Billy Corgan. And as you’d expect, some of them work and some don’t.

Among the successes: Mumford and Sons take on “Days” and “This Time Tomorrow,” and knock both out of the park. Spoon joins Davies on the title track, and Paloma Faith sings the heck out of “Lola.” And it’s very hard to screw up “Waterloo Sunset,” and Davies and Jackson Browne definitely don’t. But then there are the failures. Metallica plays “You Really Got Me” like it belongs on the Black Album. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol is the last person you want to help sing “Tired of Waiting” – he actually sounds tired, instead of impatient. And Billy Corgan… well. He’s Billy Corgan, and he Billy Corgans all over “All Day and All of the Night.”

See My Friends is a bit of a mess, really, despite the best intentions of Davies’ co-conspirators. These are great songs, and some of them are hard done by here. But there’s no mistaking that cash grab smell that’s all over this thing. I’m not sure what happened – Davies revived his solo career in 2006 with two solid albums, Other People’s Lives and Working Man’s Café, but since then, it’s been one retread after another. Shame, really.

But give Davies credit for getting material out regularly. For the most part, when you hear about the older musicians, it’s in the context of comebacks, of returns from the inky black nothing that is private, non-musical life. I’m not sure why it takes some of these guys so long to put out new stuff, except for the fact that they don’t have to.

Case in point: between 1968 and 1978, Robbie Robertson made 11 albums with The Band, including two with Bob Dylan. But between 1987 and 1998, he made only four solo records. And then he stopped. Now, Robertson could easily live off of royalties from “The Weight” for the rest of his life, so I understand not cranking out the new product. There’s no financial reason to do so. But Robertson is a good songwriter, and speaking selfishly as a fan, his is a voice I wish I could hear more frequently.

But that makes the comebacks even sweeter. Robertson’s swell new album is called How to Become Clairvoyant, and it’s his first in 13 years. Robertson is 67, but his rasp is in fine form, and his songwriting chops are in full bloom. Like Davies, Robertson enlisted a diverse group of musicians to help him on this record, from Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood to Tom Morello and Trent Reznor. Unlike Davies, he found a way to seamlessly blend these collaborations into a cohesive whole.

There aren’t really any standouts, and Robertson sticks to the dark, bluesy sound he does well. But the album as a unit holds together – even the two instrumentals add to the mood. The title track is a typically dark and portentous piece of mysticism: “King poet of the holy fool, apostle of self-destruction, I tried it your way but I couldn’t sleep, there was too much construction…” Throughout, Pino Palladino and Ian Thomas provide rock-solid rhythms, and Robertson’s thick arrangements give even the slightest ditties here depth.

In short, it’s a good record, and worth the 13-year wait. Similarly worthwhile is Bob Geldof’s new album, blessed with the witty title How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell. Even if I had been unaware of the former Boomtown Rats leader’s history, I would probably have picked this up based on the title alone. But I am aware of it: Geldof is now 59, and this is his first new album in 10 years. And as expected, it contains positively no popular songs that will sell.

Rather, this is an album full of moody, fascinating tunes. Some, like the opener “How I Roll,” are slow and expansive, while some, like follow-up “Blow Fish,” cause much more of a racket than you’d expect. The crashers are fun, as always – “Systematic 6-Pack” is a blast – but my favorites are the spacier ones, especially the lovely “Blow,” sequenced near the end. Geldof reaches for falsetto notes while a gorgeous clean guitar plays spectral tones beneath him: “Flow, bitter seas, thrown down on buckled knees, colder than the oldest sin, love will find a way to you again…” This leads into the George Harrison-esque closer, “Here’s to You,” a perfect benediction.

The Smithereens have spent a similar amount of time out of the spotlight. The New Jersey band led by Pat DiNizio, now 55, has spent time covering the Beatles and the Who on record, while DiNizio plays living room concerts across the country. But their last album of original material was God Save the Smithereens, in 1999. I don’t think anyone expected another collection of their trademark power pop to appear, which makes 2011 all the sweeter.

Of course, the title and cover design is meant to bring their biggest success, 1989’s 11, to mind. And granted, the band isn’t as young or energetic as they’ve been in the past. But 2011 is a fine, fine collection of tunes. Every song has that jangly guitar tone, those delightful harmonies, and that bouncy, melodic sound the Smithereens have brought to everything they’ve done. Here and there, you can tell that time has taken its toll, but 2011 is a stronger and better record than anyone could have expected at this point.

Favorites? OK. Opener “Sorry” sets the tone, the Bob Mould-ish chords supporting DiNizio’s thick voice as he sweetly sings, “I’d like to say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” The melodic rave-ups keep coming, peaking with “As Long As You Are Near Me” and “Bring Back the One I Love,” but I’m fond of the slower epic “Goodnight Goodbye,” with its tympanis and harmonies. Right down to the closing song, the early-Beatles-esque “What Went Wrong,” 2011 delivers. It’s proof that the old dogs can still write good songs, and rock out while playing them.

* * * * *

So I told you all those stories to tell you this one.

If there’s anyone who personifies my idea of artists growing deeper and better as they age, it’s Paul Simon. He began his professional songwriting career at 16, and with Art Garfunkel, captured the spirit of the ‘60s with poetic, political folk music that made its sharp points with sweet verse. There was a youthful simplicity to these tunes, the clear-eyed certainty that only comes with lack of worldly experience. But as he’s grown older, his musical statements have grown murkier and darker, and better. There isn’t a Paul Simon album I don’t like, but it’s hard to argue that Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints aren’t masterpieces, and that You’re the One isn’t a late-career triumph. Simon’s world-view is complex and disturbing and oddly hopeful, and always fascinating.

Paul Simon is 69 years old now, and it would be easy for him to just stop, to just cash the checks for playing “Cecilia” and “You Can Call Me Al” over and over. But Simon is a songwriter. He could no more stop exploring his thoughts in song than he could stop breathing. And in So Beautiful or So What, his extraordinary 11th solo record, he’s made one of the best albums of his long and wondrous career.

And he did it by embracing his age. Unlike 2006’s Surprise, which found Simon stretching out with Brian Eno and incorporating synths and loops and soundscapes, So Beautiful is a “classic” Simon record. It’s based around his guitar—and no one on the planet plays guitar quite like Paul Simon—and his love of percussion. And lyrically, it is a meditation on death and the afterlife, on God and what lies beyond. It’s short, at 38 minutes, but every element of it adds to the theme, as if the album is a single piece, meant to be heard as one.

It opens with “Waiting for Christmas Day,” which makes use of a sermon by Rev. J.M. Gates. Christmas Day, in this case, is a metaphor for the end, for death, for judgment. Simon’s thoughts are varied – he pictures a nephew in Iraq eating turkey dinner, and wishes he could tell his parents that “the things we never had never mattered, we were always okay.” In between verses, Gates delivers his message: “When Christmas come, nobody knows where you’ll be.”

Simon begins “The Afterlife” already dead, and this is where his whimsical, dark humor makes its first appearance. His vision of the afterlife is bureaucratic: “You got to fill out the form first, and then you wait in the line.” But it’s worth it, as he sings in the final verse: “And you feel like you’re swimming in an ocean of love, and the current is strong, but all that remains when you try to explain is a fragment of song…”

You know you’re listening to Paul Simon within seconds of “Dazzling Blue” shaking itself to life. His guitar playing is that distinctive. And here begins the second of his themes, the power of love to draw people together: “Maybe love’s an accident, or destiny is true, but you and I were born beneath a star of dazzling blue.” Nowhere on the album does that theme surface more than on “Love and Hard Times.” The soft piano piece begins with God and Jesus visiting Earth, and then leaving it behind because “there are galaxies yet to be born, creation is never done.” Adrift on his own, unable to find love on high, Simon finds it down here, and the resulting verses are so beautiful I cried the first time I heard them. When he ties it together at the end (“Thank God, I found you in time”), it is the most gorgeous musical moment of the year thus far.

So Beautiful is an album that asks big questions about heaven and destiny and how love finds us ruined and broken and puts us back together. But it contains not one ounce of pretention, and it never once feels as weighty as it is. Check out “Rewrite,” the tale of a screenwriter trying to revise his life: “I’ll eliminate the pages where the father has a breakdown and he has to leave the family, but he really meant no harm, I’m gonna substitute a car chase and a race across the rooftops, when the father saves the children and he holds them in his arms…” “Love is Eternal Sacred Light” starts at the big bang and tries to explain why God had to leave his creation, but it’s jaunty and light and danceable.

The title track, then, serves as the ultimate summation of Simon’s themes. With God absent, the afterlife a whispered promise, and the world a mess, it’s up to you to make what you can of your life. “I’m just a raindrop in a bucket, a coin dropped in a slot,” Simon sings. “I am an empty house on Weed Street across the road from a vacant lot, you know life is what you make of it, so beautiful or so what…” The song is among the most energetic on the record, its joy palpable, its caution thrown to the wind, even as the lyrics touch on the death of Martin Luther King. It’s simply a glorious piece of work.

Astoundingly, at 69 years old, Paul Simon has made one of the best albums in his catalog. Or rather, because he is 69 years old. So Beautiful or So What is the kind of record that only comes with age, experience, and depth of insight. It’s a dazzling work, one I wouldn’t trade for a dozen scrappy indie-rock fly-by-nights. It is a record with purpose and power, and yet one that is utterly enjoyable from start to finish. It’s one of those albums that makes you glad its author lived long enough to create it.

And it makes me feel better about getting old, which is nice.

* * * * *

That’s it for this week, but before I bring this to a close, I want to direct your attention once again to www.madeinaurora.com, the site for Made in Aurora, the local artists compilation album I contributed to. It comes out Friday, Record Store Day. You can watch a sweet video, read essays from the musicians, and buy the vinyl/CD combo online. I played piano on one track and wrote the liner notes, but I’m the least of these contributors. You want this record for Jeremy Keen and Kevin Trudo and Dave Nelson and Greg Boerner and Noah Gabriel and Hoss and everyone else involved. This is the best music you’ve never heard.

Next week, pretty, pretty noise with Elbow, the Boxer Rebellion and Derri Daugherty. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I don’t buy concert DVDs very often.

I’m looking at my shelf now, and I have a grand total of eight concert films on disc. This is not counting Marillion DVDs – I have all of those, but they’re a special case, one of the few bands for whom I am a raving fanboy collector. Most of the time, though, I can do without a concert DVD in my collection, and the ones I do have (even the Marillion ones) are rarely dusted off. If I want to see the band play live, I’ll see them play live, not on my television.

I have to really like and want to support a band to buy a concert DVD. Which is why it should be no surprise that I picked up Live From Studio 6A, Quiet Company’s first video. It documents the band’s performance in the legendary Austin, Texas room for Satellite Sets, broadcast on Austin public television. And let me tell you, they tore it up. I’ve seen the band live, on a much smaller stage, and it’s something to behold. But this is the next best thing.

I’m in serious danger of coming off like a Taylor Muse fanboy, but he’s one of my favorite songwriters right now. While watching Live From Studio 6A, I kept thinking, “I love this song. Oh! This song! I love this one too.” It doesn’t hurt that the show starts off with one of my favorites, the sweet “Our Sun is Always Rising,” from the band’s second album, Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon. But there isn’t a QuietCo song I don’t like in some way. Even the lesser lights here, like “Jezebel,” are killers.

The centerpiece of the disc, naturally, is the three-song set of new tunes from the in-progress third QuietCo record, We Are All Where We Belong. I’d heard both parts of “Preaching to the Choir Invisible” live before, but they’ve gone through some revisions since then – they’re longer, more epic, more dynamic, yet still hummable. They also reach David Bazan levels of spiritual disillusionment: at one point, Muse promises he’ll believe if Jesus speaks just one word to him. The winningly-titled “Set Your Monster Free (My New Year’s Resolution is to Cope With My Morality)” is fantastic, too.

As always, this QuietCo show ends with “On Modern Men,” and the band blows the doors off. It’s worth owning this DVD just for that. In concert, this song is indomitable, rising and peaking and falling back and rising again and exploding all over the stage. If you’ve heard me talking about Quiet Company, and you’re not sure why, watch this. It’ll tell you all you need to know.

Live From Studio 6A is available from the band on their website. The third album is scheduled for a summer release. It is, most definitely, one of my most anticipated records of 2011. Watch for it.

* * * * *

Another thing I don’t do very often is pay import prices.

This is another relic of a bygone age, one that only collectors of physical CDs like me care about. I know I can just go online and download whatever I want for free, but I’m a big enough fan of the physical product that I spend time tracking hard-to-find discs down. And nothing is more frustrating for me than finding out that a band I love has no plans to release their album in the United States.

It has to be true love for me to pay import prices, which are often twice what I’d pay for a disc here, plus international shipping. Again, Marillion is a band that gets my import money every time – I’ve rarely bought the U.S. versions of their records, even when they do distribute them over here. I’m used to paying more than $20 for a Marillion album. It’s worth it to me.

But often with imports, it’s a question of whether I want to wait for a domestic version, or whether I have to hear the damn thing now. Some bands are on the gimme-it-now list, like Sloan and the Feeling. Some bands, like Starsailor, are on the wait list. This week I’m buying the U.S. release of the new Elbow, Build a Rocket Boys, which I expect to love. But it’s been out in Europe for more than a month, and I haven’t felt the need to import it.

But the Click Five? They’re apparently on my gimme-it-now list.

I found this out because their third album, TCV, has only been released in Malaysia. Seriously. These guys are from Boston, and their own country doesn’t want their stuff. And I can’t figure out why. I get a lot of shit for liking the Click Five and their sugary power-pop, but it hits my sweet spot perfectly, and I can’t imagine I’m alone in this. Delightfully crunchy guitar-pop tunes with killer melodies and a sweetly romantic sensibility? What’s not to love?

Even more frustrating, this may be my favorite Click Five album. TCV is their bid for respectability, but they’ve matured in all the right ways. They’re still goofy and sunny, and they still write prom themes, but the child-like effervescence that got them lumped in with the Jonas Brothers has been nicely darkened up. TCV is a smooth power pop album that zips by, and will have you singing along to every track.

Every track? Every damn track. The first two are, in fact, two of the best songs to bear the band’s name: “The Way It Goes” is a chugging little opener with a squiggly keyboard part and a slow build to a swell chorus, and “I Quit! I Quit! I Quit!” is a little masterpiece, combining a Kinks-ish riff with an almost criminally catchy melody. The lyrics are about kicking one addition to be with another, and they’re littered with little nods: “I’m a wreck, you’re the fix, that’s why I quit…”

I’m not sure the record gets to those heights again, but if there’s a drop-off, it’s very small. “Nobody’s Business” is flat-out fun, as is “Fever For Shakin’,” a tune that reminds me of Sloan. The one song I could do without is “Love Still Goes On,” the big ballad thing, but even that isn’t bad, and it leads into “Don’t Let Me Go,” one of the band’s most understated tunes. This is the Click Five’s second album with singer Kyle Patrick, and he brings a weight to these songs that original singer Eric Dill couldn’t have.

If I have another favorite, it’s “Good as Gold,” perhaps the most “mature” thing here. Over skipping acoustic guitars, Patrick sings a simple lyric about time slipping away: “Make it last, ‘cause this is all we have, a love as good as gold…” Yeah, it’s cheesy. Yeah, it works. This is a world-class pop song, to my ears. I like this band’s sound so much that even the simpler songs they pen, like the stomping closer “Be In Love,” make me smile. But when they hit on something like “Good As Gold,” that smile turns into a full-on love affair with life.

I know I’m going to get shit for this again, but what can I do. I’m a Click Five fan. Even the bonus tracks, the goofball “Black Boots” and the sighing “Just Like My Heart Falls,” do it for me. This is streamlined pop music the way I like it, played by real musicians striving for the best songs they can put together. It’s not life-changing stuff, and it’s not “important.” But it’s fun and well-made, and it puts a big grin on my face.

Near the end of TCV, there’s a ditty called “The World Comes Crawlin’ Back.” Let’s hope this is prophetic. This is a swell power-pop album from a band too many have dismissed. I brought mine in from halfway around the world, and it was worth every penny.

Hear “The Way It Goes” here.

* * * * *

I think that’s gonna be it for me this week. The election has wiped me out. Next week, though, we get that Old Guy Revue, with Paul Simon, Ray Davies, Robbie Robertson, Bob Geldof and the Smithereens. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.